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Changes
in Our Organization:
The word Shoah is our word for Holocaust.
Just as we have moved forward by
renaming our group, we need to move forward
in thought and action. We are
looking to include
the children of children who have less and
less connection to
the history
of the major heart rending attempt to
destroy our people. We not only
need to face
this challenge but to look ahead
and try to see how we play a role
in a Legacy
for future generations. Although we feel
close to each other, share
some of the senses
of outrage, pain, suffering and disgust at
what happened
to our parents, it did not
happen to us. We only hear of the stories and pass
them
on “second hand”. We cannot leave the story
strictly to academicians and
would
like to be involved in the
teaching of the cruelty and the pure evil that
occurred.
Most of us know more about
the fact that we missed growing up with
grandparents and various otherextended
members of the family that we lost
and live
with the upset feelings on a continual
basis.
M any of us are well past the hurt, group sessions and
discussions that have beat
the subject like a dead
horse and there are those that have just recently come
to grips with that perspective. For those well past
this it is hard to look back and
review,
relive and rehash old battles or conversations that
have been pursued for
well over 20 years and for
those individuals we may have less of a purpose that
will immediately be recognized! At least, that is what
I have heard and it is a
negative perspective. The
social aspect of associating together was OK when
we
were mostly a large group of single people and that is
certainly not true now.
Some of us disagree and would
still like to associate because often there are
spouses
that are not Descendents and are missing that background,
comfort and
interest. This is “who we are” and we need
to keep that with us and maintain this
piece of ourselves
to be well rounded. Some of us disagree with the negative
perspective because we could still find time between
our own concerns with
family and friends to get
together with “our own” and feel comfort in our
commonality, culture and gather to improve connection
and develop our own little
community. Some of our
parents did this and it helped them to move forward,
deal with life’s issues and why should we not use this
lemon of a history and
make this our lemonade. Let’s
use this as a tool to move into life with a sense of
kinship. Many of us lost lots of family and this
becomes our extended family. We
also have a new
sense of responsibility. As we move forward it falls
to our
shoulders to carry on with “Remembrance” and
creating the structure that is
sustainable. We have
much to do. We have the 2002 Legacy Conference
follow
up with hundreds of new leads of potential
interested individuals in what we do
and we need new
active leaders to come forward to help to work with
follow-up.
Our organization has been through
a process of re-creation since the old entity
called
the Association of Children of Holocaust Survivors
went through official
corporate dissolution, due to lack
of follow through on paperwork. We re-created
the
organization and named it the Association of Descendents
of the
Shoah-Illinois Inc. We thought through that process
by adding Descendents and
all future generations after
2G’s are included as member candidates.
We
need to be available to accept new roles as leaders
in commemoration and
remembrance ceremonies as we are
asked to assist. We need to develop new
additional contacts,
connections and interests to create a memorable image of
our perspective to the public. We need to bring in newer or
not currently
connected individuals to be a part of future
leadership role acceptance and
increase the image to be a
valued and sought after kind of position for the future
continued existence of our values. We need to decide and
develop a new
recognition of the challenges of our time and
deal with the similarities of now and
1933 and work along
with all our strength and all our allies in the Jewish and
other communities to reverse that potential outcome before
it is recreated. There
are tremendous needs and challenges,
but as we face them we also can look
back at a year which
honors the efforts and successes that took an organization
from non-existence and just a little “gathering group” with
less than half a dozen
paid members to an organization with
well over 100 current paid members and
well over 600 on a
mailing list. We need to double this situation many times
over in order to have the energy to keep meeting the
challenges we face. Even
more needed, will be new, additional
faces, names and presences at our board,
planning and general
meetings. We must find ways to respond to the various
challenges and this all takes time energy and people. We
recently have been
honored to have 3rd generation involvement
and seek to form a "3G Council",
which is seeking members to
actively attend and volunteer to lead us into the
future and
begin to take leadership roles on today! Do you want to know
more?
Look for the scheduling of that and other meetings of
interest in the future. We
need and hope to hear from many
of you that are ready and open to come to our
meetings
and consider this your formal invitation to do so.
I
am sure many have noticed, that I have spent little space
and time reviewing our
fiscal condition or little related
to our technical matters. We are looking forward to
stressing
the importance of inclusion of you, the members, in the
larger expanded
inner circle of leadership and dealing with
the challenges of the future with your
help and participation.
This means attending our general meetings, where there
is
often discussion of theme, direction of the organization,
response to public
issues which require more attention and
of course we still have the various routine
parties such as
the June 15 picnic and the Chanukah party in December. There
is nothing, no past dealings or personality conflicts that are
relevant to be able to
prevent participation. I feel confident
that we can be sure of that. Take the time
and participate and
I will prove that I am right. I hope that was enough guilt for
everyone. Well, this lecture worked in my family. Best wishes
for a productive
ADSI year to all!
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